Encyclopedia of

Marie Antoinette Biography

M arie Antoinette was the queen of France at the outbreak of the French
Revolution (1787–99). Her extravagant lifestyle, which included
lavish parties and expensive clothes and jewelry, made her unpopular with
most French citizens. When the king was overthrown, Marie Antoinette was
put in jail and eventually beheaded.

A royal marriage

Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755, in Vienna (now in
Austria), the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. She was the eleventh
daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I (1708–1765) and the
empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780). In 1770 she married Louis XVI
(1754–1793). Louis was the French dauphin, or the oldest son of
the king of France. He became king fours years later in 1774, which made
Marie Antoinette the queen.

The personalities of the two rulers were very different. Louis XVI was
withdrawn and emotionless. Marie Antoinette was happy and careless in
her actions and choice of friends. At first the new queen was well liked
by the French citizens. She organized elegant dances and gave many gifts
and favors to her friends. However, people began to resent her
increasingly extravagant ways. She soon became unpopular in the court
and the country, annoying many of the nobles, including the
King's brothers. She also bothered French aristocrats, or nobles,
who were upset over a recent alliance with Austria. Austria was long
viewed as France's enemy. Among the general French population she
became the symbol for the extravagance of the royal family.

The queen intervenes

Marie Antoinette did not disrupt foreign affairs as frequently as has
been claimed. When she first entered France she interrupted an official
German greeting with, "Speak French, Monsieur. From now on I hear
no language other than French." She sometimes tried, usually
without great success, to obtain French support for her homeland.

The queen's influence on domestic policy before 1789 has also
been exaggerated. Her interference in politics was usually in order to
obtain jobs and money for her friends. It is true, however, that she
usually opposed the efforts of reforming ministers such as A. R. J.
Turgot (1727–1781) and became involved in court scandals against
them. Activities such as the "diamond necklace affair,"
where the queen was accused of having an improper relationship with a
wealthy church official in exchange for an expensive necklace, increased
her unpopularity and led to a stream of pamphlets and articles against
her. The fact that after the birth of her children Marie
Antoinette's way of life became more restrained did not alter the
popular image of an immoral and extravagant woman.

The last days of the monarchy

In the summer of 1788 France was having an economic crisis. Louis XVI
yielded to pressure and assembled the Estates General, which was a
governmental body that represented France's three
Estates—the nobles, the church, and the French common people.
Marie Antoinette agreed to the return of Jacques Necker
(1732–1804) as chief minister and to granting the Third Estate,
which represented the commoners, as many representatives as the other
two Estates combined. However, after such events as the taking of the
Bastille on July 14, 1789 (French citizens overran a Paris prison and
took the weapons stored there), Marie Antoinette supported the
conservative court faction that insisted on keeping the royal family in
power.

On October 1, 1789, the queen attended a banquet at Versailles, France,
during which the French Revolution was attacked and insulted. A

Marie Antoinette.
Courtesy of the

Library of Congress

.

few days later (October 4–5) a Parisian crowd forced the royal
court to move to Paris, where they could control it more easily. Marie
Antoinette's role in the efforts of the monarchy to work with
such moderates as the Comte de Mirabeau (1749–1791) and later
with the constitutional monarchist A. P. Barnave (1761–1793) is
unclear. But it appears that she lacked confidence in them. On June 21,
1791, the king and queen were captured at Varennes (a border town in
France) after trying to escape. Convinced that only foreign assistance
could save the monarchy, the queen sought the aid of her brother, the
Holy Roman emperor Leopold II (1747–1792). At this time, many
French military officers left the country. Thinking that
France would be easily defeated, she favored a declaration of war
against Austria in April 1792. On August 10, 1792, a Paris crowd stormed
the Tuileries Palace and ended the monarchy.

The queen is dead

On August 13, 1792, Marie Antoinette began a captivity that was to end
only with her death. She was jailed in various Parisian prisons. After a
number of unsuccessful attempts to escape, Marie Antoinette appeared
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. She was charged with aiding the enemy
and inciting civil war within France. The tribunal found her guilty and
condemned her to death. On October 16, 1793, she went to the guillotine.
(The guillotine was a machine used during the French Revolution to
execute people by beheading them.) Marie Antoinette aroused sympathy by
her dignity and courage in prison and before the executioner.

When did Marie Antoinette say, "Let them eat cake?" I know she said this when the poor people (98%) of the French people were protesting the economic crisis--they had no bread. Was this said when the women marched because they thought that the Queen was hoarding grain?

None of her kids survived. They were captured and killed too. One of her little boys had tubercolosis and died in jail. Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake", that was just a rumor that someone made and nobody wasted time to public the lie.